Tag: iot

Video and the internet of things
A few days ago we discussed how 4k video cameras are going to change the sports broadcasting industry.

Yesterday executives from modular data center supplier VCE held a media lunch where they discussed some of their industrial applications. One of the areas they discussed was the monitoring of power stations with large resolution cameras.

The 4k cameras are trained on machine rooms with software watching for irregular conditions such as excessive vibrations, leaks or smoke. Should something out of the ordinary be detected, warnings can be triggered and potentially affected equipment spun down.

With the 4k resolution the cameras are able to watch large areas and like the sports coverage can zoom in for a detailed view of an affected area.

The use of 4k video cameras shows how the internet of things won’t just be about the data gathered from smart devices but also matching the information coming from IoT equipment with that of other environmental factors.

For companies like VCE these sort of applications are an opportunity as they need large amounts of data storage and processing power in local centres.

In many respects these small scale data centers are a large scale example of the fog computing being touted by companies like Cisco where most of the operational tasks are carried out by local equipment with only reports and exceptions being transmitted to the cloud.

This sort of application also shows the demands different industries are going to have for local data processing and storage with the VCE executives suggesting hospitals, mines and sports stadiums are also going to need these facilities.

For VCE – a troubled joint venture between Cisco, storage company EMC and computer virtualisation firm VM Ware – these are the sort of clients they are hoping to find to keep their business running.

Regardless of VCE’s prospects, the need for equipment to manage the data being collected by devices on the Internet of Things and 4k video is going to grow. That could give us one of the clues of where the jobs of the future are going to come from.

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March 13, 2015
Management struggles with the Internet of Things
Exactly what benefits does the Internet of Things offer businesses? A survey of Australian businesses by Microsoft claims there are benefits but few companies have deployed the IoT in their operations as managers struggle to understand the technologies.

In the survey “Cut through: How the Internet of Things is sharpening Australia’s competitive edge” carried out by research company Telsyte, Microsoft found two thirds of businesses that deployed IoT technologies have achieved an average cost saving of 28 percent while half the businesses have improved efficiencies of around the same amount.

A poor take up rate

The devil however is in the details and most notable only a quarter of the 306 companies surveyed admitting to using IoT applications.

While the sample size is small, and the Australian business community has been relatively slow in adopting the IoT, the survey indicates managers see the value but are struggling to see how they can adopt the technologies in their organisations.

Although fewer than one in 20 organisations said they could not foresee any business benefit from IoT, an alarmingly high 48 per cent still have no plans to implement the technology.

This reluctance comes largely from a lack of resources and expertise with the top five reasons for not adopting the IoT being technology challenges, affordability, security concerns, lack of skills and no management support.

Lack of management support

Management’s lack of understanding and support for IoT solutions presents a risk for businesses as the next generation of industrial machinery – from cars to tractors – will have some connectivity built into it. A failure to understand the technologies built into equipment opens a range of operational and security risks for an organisation.

Another aspect about the implementation of the IoT that comes from this survey is exactly what are we talking about? Microsoft’s emphasis in this report was clearly on the Big Data analytics, something else that might confuse the discussion with management.

What’s clear from the Microsoft’s survey is companies do realise there are benefits from the IoT but managements are struggling to understand the technologies and how to implement them into their operations. This is an opportunity for the savvy integrator or reseller.

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February 27, 2015
The IoT’s shaky security
Samsung’s spying TV sets attracted headlines that worried many people but until yesterday no-one had looked at exactly what data was being sent by the devices to Samsung.

Pen Test Partners looked at the data flowing too and from Samsung smart TVs and found that yes, the devices are listening and transmitted data back to their – and other company’s – servers.

That is pretty well what is expected, the real concern though is the quality of what’s being transmitted with Pen Test describing it as a mishmash of code with not even a gesture towards security, “what we see here is not SSL encrypted data. It’s not even HTTP data, it’s a mix of XML and some custom binary data packet.”

One of the concerns about the Internet of Things has been the quality and security of the data being transmitted, the Samsung TV shows both are lacking.

For the IoT to deliver the benefits it promises, connections need to be secure and data reliable. Right now it appears the vendors of consumer products aren’t delivering the basics necessary to make the technologies dependable.

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February 21, 2015

Preparing for the mobile data explosion

Late last month Cisco Systems released its annual Visual Networking Index that tracks the company’s predictions for the growth of global network traffic over the upcoming five years.

It’s no surprise this year’s report predicts global data traffic will grow at over fifty percent compounded each year with Cisco expecting 24.3 exabytes to be pushed around the world’s networks each month by 2019.

Most of that network traffic will come from tablet and smartphones with Cisco predicting data use will grow by up to a factor of five on those devices with devices like wearables growing fourfold.

This growth creates a challenge for telcos as they invest in capacity to deal with the increased traffic and Cisco sees half of all smartphone connections will be handed off to WiFi networks by the decade’s end.

Summary of Per-Device Usage Growth, MB per Month

Device Type	2014	2019
Nonsmartphone	22 MB/month	105 MB/month
M2M Module	70 MB/month	366 MB/month
Wearable Device	141 MB/month	479 MB/month
Smartphone	819 MB/month	3,981 MB/month
4G Smartphone	2,000 MB/month	5,458 MB/month
Tablet	2,076 MB/month	10,767 MB/month
4G Tablet	2,913 MB/month	12,314 MB/month
Laptop	2,641 MB/month	5,589 MB/month

Source: Cisco VNI Mobile, 2015

Handing half the growth in mobile traffic over to Wi-Fi connections, most of which will be connected to fiber or ADSL services will provide challenges for fixed line operators as well who will see the demand for capacity also explode over the rest of the decade.

Much of this explains the moves by companies like Telstra to roll out public Wi-Fi services to start locking users into their services. It also gives them, and consumers, an opportunity to understand how networks that mix both cellular and Wi-Fi behave.

Another aspect of the Cisco VNI survey is the Internet of Things which is going to see exponential growth as industrial and household devices start being connected either directly through the telco networks, across unlicensed radio spectrum or over private Wi-Fi systems.

While Cisco predicts the bulk of that traffic as being generated by smartphones, the company sees connected devices as growing by 45% per year over the next five years with 3.2 billion sensors connected to the internet by the end of the decade.

Notable in the prediction that Low Powered Wide Area (LPWA) networks – non cellular systems mostly operating in the unlicensed spectrum used by Wi-Fi networks – will provide nearly a third of the connections by 2019. At the same time we can expect many M2M deployments to consolidate traffic locally with much of the data processing down locally before the residual information being passed up the network.

As usual the Cisco VNI report underscores, and possibly understates, the growth in mobile data usage we’re going to see over the rest of the decade. For businesses, it’s time to plan for managing both the flow and application that smart devices are going to generate in our daily operations.

Samsung needs a win with the Galaxy 6 smartphone

Having seen its dominance of the smartphone market eroded by a resurgent Apple and a range of upstart Chinese vendors, Samsung has announced it will launch its Galaxy 6 smartphone on March 1 reports the Sammobile website.

The new phone is reported to boast a curved screen measuring somewhere between 5.1 and 5.3-inches a fingerprint sensor and a 20 mega-pixel camera, which compares well to the iPhone 6’s eight mega-pixel camera.

While the proposed specs are impressive, the company has a challenge ahead as consulting firm IDC reported its smartphone shipments dropped 11% year on year last quarter in an market that grew by quarter.

Top Five Smartphone Vendors, Shipments, Market Share and Year-Over-Year Growth, Q4 2014 Preliminary Data (Units in Millions) source IDC Research

Vendor	4Q14 Shipment Volumes	4Q14 Market Share	4Q13 Shipment Volumes	4Q13 Market Share	Year-Over-Year Change
1. Samsung	75.1	20.01%	84.4	28.83%	-11.0%
2. Apple	74.5	19.85%	51.0	17.43%	46.0%
3. *Lenovo	24.7	6.59%	13.9	4.75%	77.9%
4. Huawei	23.5	6.25%	16.6	5.66%	41.7%
5. Xiaomi	16.6	4.42%	5.9	2.03%	178.6%
Others	160.9	42.9%	120.9	41.31%	33.1%
Total	375.2	100.0%	292.7	100.0%	28.2%

*Lenovo + Motorola	24.7	6.6%	19.5	6.7%	26.4%

While the numbers for the Chinese manufacturers are impressive, Apple’s shipments should also worry Samsung given the two companies are fighting for the top end consumers in the European and North America markets.

For Samsung its smartphones form a central part of its Internet of Things strategy so the success of the Galaxy 6 is critical to the company’s future plans, particularly given the lukewarm reception to the Tizen based Z1 phone on the Indian market last month.

Samsung’s China Crisis

With Samsung struggling with both its high end Android smartphones and its lower priced Tizen devices as Chinese manufacturers like Lenovo, Xiaomi and Huawei steal market share, the company desperately needs to hit the mark with the Galaxy 6.

Google as well has a stake in Samsung’s success as the Chinese manufacturers are increasingly turning to open source versions of Android for their smartphone systems. A flagship device for Android to counter the iPhone 6 is desperately needed to keep consumer and developer interest in the Google Play store and for Google’s consumer IoT ambitions.

The stakes are high for both Google and Samsung, the South Korean giant getting a mis-step with the Galaxy 6 could see it following the faded fortunes of its Japanese competitors.

Tag: iot

Video and the internet of things

Similar posts:

Management struggles with the Internet of Things

A poor take up rate

Lack of management support

Similar posts:

The IoT’s shaky security

Similar posts:

Preparing for the mobile data explosion

Summary of Per-Device Usage Growth, MB per Month

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Samsung needs a win with the Galaxy 6 smartphone

Samsung’s China Crisis

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